See The Faces of Children The Cuomo Administration Allowed to Be Poisoned

A Twitter account has sprung up promoting a photojournalism project which shows the victims of the Hoosick Falls water crisis, a crisis that was allowed to fester without public knowledge by the Cuomo administration.

Recent reports show the Cuomo administration tried to subvert information about a cancer-causing chemical known as PFOA in the water supply of the town of Hoosick Falls, New York.

Documents obtained by Politico show the New York State Department of Health dismissing warnings from the EPA, and refusing to alert residents of the very dangerous situation.

Politico’s analysis revealed that “hundreds of people, from babies to the elderly, have a dangerous level of toxic chemical in their blood stream.”

The Cuomo administration knew residents of Hoosick Falls were being poisoned, and it turns out the children were disproportionately effected as they “seem to be displaying far higher numbers than their parents.”

As reporter Scott Waldman explains, there are children in Hoosick Falls with chemicals in their blood who would be perfectly healthy if not for state and local officials covering up the crisis.

There are babies in Hoosick Falls w/high PFOA levels, who would have none if state and local govt warned properly https://t.co/3SHvltDK3G

Now, a devastating social media project has gone up on Twitter, with children and adults who were poisoned holding up signs which show their blood test numbers indicating their high level of the cancer-causing chemical.

It contains numerous pictures of people living in PFOA affected areas, including young children, holding up pieces of paper with their suspected blood levels. They also have various messages written on them.

The account states the project puts faces to the blood level numbers and is calling for state hearings on the matter.

One of the tweets reads, “CAN YOU HEAR US NOW HANNON??” It is a reference to Senate Health Committee Chair Kemp Hannon, who actually claimed ignorance on the Hoosick Falls water crisis which has been ongoing for years now.

“I haven’t heard,” Hannon told CBS 6 reporters. “That’s not my district and no one has written so I don’t know if what you’re saying is accurate or not.”

Apparently one has to write letters to the Health Committee Chair in order to get action. ‘Proactive’ is not a part of Mr. Hannon’s vocabulary.

The social media project is also demanding hearings, repeating calls that say “We deserve hearings and support.”

Aside from a handful of legislators such as Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, the call for hearings has fallen mostly on deaf ears.

Politico reports that the concerns of residents “may as well be happening on another planet.”

Planned hearings on water quality issues have been cancelled. With the legislative session ending in less than a week, it’s unlikely lawmakers will discuss “the state’s most significant environmental crisis in years.”

According to the report, politicians on both sides of the aisle literally fled from questions being posed by journalists …

Senate GOP Majority Leader John Flanagan walked away from a reporter on Monday rather than answer a question as to why he had not called for legislative hearings into water quality issues around the state. On Tuesday, Basil Seggos, acting commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, left his bag behind because he skipped out of a committee hearing so quickly before a reporter could ask him questions.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers holding a press conference on a new bill that would expand testing for lead in school water supplies bristled when asked whether Hoosick Falls situation required that the legislation be broadened to include other contaminants. They ended the press conference shortly after reporters started asking about Hoosick Falls.

It’s reminiscent of a few months ago when State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, the man who used the safety of his imaginary kids to help Governor Cuomo squash fracking in New York, scurried away while “his staff physically blocked three reporters who repeatedly tried to ask the commissioner” about water issues in Hoosick Falls.

Time Warner Cable News reported yesterday that hearings will not happen before lawmakers head back home to their own families on Thursday.

Sen. Kathy Marchione (R) seemed completely disinterested in finding out how and why state officials avoided telling residents of Hoosick Falls that the water they were drinking was poisoned.

“We can’t change the blood tests,” Marchione said. “But we sure better look forward to seeing how can we help, what’s the next step and providing more information.”

You can’t change the blood tests but you can give these families a little comfort in knowing that something like this won’t ever happen to anybody else again. And the only way to do that is by finding out the mistakes that were made, revealing the incompetence that was undertaken, holding those responsible accountable, and peeling back the clear cover up orchestrate by state and city officials.

Sometimes in order to move forward, you have to analyze the past, Ms. Marchione. Hiding from it is not the ideal way to handle a crisis of this magnitude.

Unfortunately, the poisoned residents of Hoosick Falls and their children can’t run away from the situation the way cowards at the state Capitol have.

About the AuthorRusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss is a freelance journalist focusing on the conservative movement and its political agenda. He has been writing conservatively charged articles for several years in the upstate New York area, and his writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, American Thinker, FoxNews.com, Big Government, the Times Union, and the Troy Record. He is also Editor of one of the top conservative blogs of 2012, the Mental Recession.

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